


Suns and Silence

by ShianneUrami



Series: Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014 [6]
Category: Dragon Age, Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Manipulaton, Tranquility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShianneUrami/pseuds/ShianneUrami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragon Age AU where Aradia is going to be made Tranquil and Sollux can do nothing to stop it... or can he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suns and Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [BR3 prompt.](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/19475.html?thread=5286419#cmt5286419)

“This is fucking ridiculous, out of ALL of us, Aradia wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s creepy as fuck and yeah, okay, she’s really morbid and sometimes giggles at the corpses strung up, but she’s doesn’t need to be made Tranquil! She’s never hurt anyone! She resists the demons better than any of us! You’re out of your mind!”  
  
Sollux’s voice was hoarse from pleading through the bars into the jail cells. He was on the outside, she was on the inside. She was also being watched by a high standing guard, one who had such a keen eye for the Knight-Commander. Wide shoulders and a crooked nose, a few missing teeth with long dark hair, he was called Equius. He was like a puppy at her heels and she deemed Aradia unfit, and said it was just to make her Tranquil. Sollux could do nothing but protest.  
  
He’d been at this for hours this morning, just calling the same things into the cells, people milling around behind him in the Gallows. He pleaded and begged, he tried bargaining and reasoning, but nothing he said was working. He’d growled and nearly cried in frustration, but the guard in front of her cell didn’t even seem to hear him, as if he were deaf!  
  
As he had the day before when he was too weak, his voice too soft to beg them anymore, Sollux fell to his knees, gravel biting at his knees, thin hands and long fingers gripping the bars tight enough to make them pale. Aradia in her cell watched him, her hair matted and knotted, worse than usual. She called softly to him, “You should go get some rest, Sollux. It’s no use. You tried, but the Knight-Commander ordered, there’s nothing we can do about it. It’ll be alright.”  
  
Watching into the cells, he could see she had lost a little weight, but her face was still round and her eyes were still bright and Sollux could see Aradia’s familiar mischievous nature in those rusty eyes. Resting his head against the bars Sollux sighed. It was a struggle to pull himself to his feet. He knew it wouldn’t be alright, of course he knew.  
  
Once the Knight-Commander decided on something, there was so very little that could be done about it. The templars would make Aradia Tranquil, as it was agreed upon that she needed to be such by the Knight-Commander and her piss stain of a First Enchanter.  
  
Sollux retreated back to his quarters and tucked himself away for the rest of the day and on into the night. He awoke much later, unsure of the time, but only that it was dark. He’d been plagued by dreams and nightmares of gruesome demons and menacing monsters and the screams of his best friend and perhaps more, waking in a cold sweat.  
  
He pulled his cloak up around him tight and slipped back out into the night air, chilling the sweat still clinging to his skin. Slinking through corridors and alleys by the light of the moon and the torches, he made his way back to Aradia, unlike what he’d done the night before. At dawn she would be gone. He had until then to set her free.  
  
The guard who’d been tasked with watching over her was nowhere to be seen. There was no one at all was down here in the halls of the cells attending the few poor souls charged with Silence. Sollux spotted Aradia just where he’d left her hours before. She hadn’t moved an inch, leaned against the wall of her grimy cell. A soft click of the tongue and her eyes shifted to meet his. He smiled for her and she smiled back before realizing what was happening.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here.”  
  
“Yeah, and?”  
  
“You’re going to get yourself caught. You know it’s against the rules to be out after dark! Sollux, go back to bed,” she urged him waving both hands and looking up and down the corridor.  
  
“I couldn’t just leave you here, AA, don’t you know me at all?” He huffed a laugh.  
  
“Sollux, I’m serious, I can handle myself.” Aradia’s voice sounded a bit more urgent.  
  
“Aradia, what do YOU plan on doing that I can’t?”  
  
“You’ll see, you just need to g- Sollux, watch out!” She was on her feet with her hand shoved through the bars, still a few cells down from where he was standing at the entrance to the block. He turned only fast enough to catch the hilt of the sword to the temple instead of the back of the neck. He crumpled like a sack of rocks.  
  
Equius hauled him up, holding him by the throat with his toes barely scraping the ground. He was unconscious but breathing. The Knight-Commander stepped up to run her hand over Sollux’s robes and his skin slowly, surveying the boy. He came to when her hand settled on his cheek. She smiled up at Sollux, and nodded to Equius to set him down and with a hand on the back of his neck to keep him steady, and to keep him from bolting, he was back on his feet, if a bit wobbly, watching her with hazy but wary eyes.  
  
The Knight-Commander was a young Commander, soft in face and eye, but with a twisted sense of what was good for people. She felt that Tranquility was a good thing, that it would help mages, so she did such without much reason sometimes. If she felt it would help the mage in question, she pushed the order to the First Enchanter, who without question, always agreed with her, and often times prompted for Tranquility himself. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t just, but it was how things had worked around her for a long while. Feferi and Eridan were names known all through the mage circle, names whispered like scary stories for small children, though they were nightmares for adults all the same.  
  
Sollux didn’t know the reasoning behind the Knight-Commander’s decision, or even if it was the Knight-Commander at all who decided it was Aradia who would be become Tranquil. For that matter neither did Aradia. But Feferi decided, and when Eridan agreed, that was the end of the protesting.  
  
As the fire of dawn licked across the morning sky, the city smelling of dew, Feferi smiled down at Sollux, and with a voice soft as tidepools, serene and untouched, she spoke to him, “You’re causing quite a lot of ruckus, Master Captor. I heard a little guppy tell me you’re trying to bust Madam Megido out. Why would you do that?”  
  
“She doesn’t belong in there! She didn’t do anything to deserve being made Tranquil, you can’t do this!” Sollux was quick to answer, voice shaking, his skull pounding with the blow he’d taken to the head, bruises already blossoming across his forehead and the top of his cheek.  
  
“Oh, you’re shrimply adorabubble, Sollux. Becoming Tranquil is an act of mercy! A kindness to her. She won’t be krilled for being too powerful, and if she’s Tranquil, demons can’t get to her. She can resist them, I know, but she’s targeted more too!”  
  
“The strain on her nightly from the ghastly abominations, she might be strong now but with how much of a hot spot she is, it’d be better to make sure she doesn’t have a chance to fall to the shit that pokes and prods at her every night. An’ she’ll be able to control herself easier too.” The First Enchanter spoke up from the side, long nose and hard eyes, thick glasses and ridiculous slicked back hair. Sollux had seen his staff was more dangerous than it looked, a simple white length of wood.  
  
The back of Feferi’s fingers stroked over Sollux’s cheek gently, “It’s betta this wave. The big fish will leave this little guppy alone. She’s tastier looking than the rest of you, they’d swim farther for this meal. Wouldn’t you want that strain to stop for her?” Cupping his cheek, voice like a siren’s song, “Don’t you care for her, Sollux?”  
  
Sollux shivered under her touch and he watched Eridan tighten his grip on his staff, watching with hungry eyes and building anticipation. He couldn’t wait. There was something wrong about the way Feferi looked at him, almost as if he was a small wounded animal, or a poor confused child. It made him feel small and sick.  
  
He shook his head, slowly at first, and then faster, his shoulders shaking, voice cracked but quiet, “No. I can’t let you fucking do this, it’s not RIGHT! She doesn’t deserve this!”  
  
Power lashed from him, searing lines in rock and armor, paper thin cuts along skin and shearing off a few hairs, whipping from him like lightning. It was unstable and unpredictable and rebounded enough the three of them needed to throw their arms up to protect faces. Weapons were drawn but the cracks of lightning didn’t subside, Sollux’s face a mix of anguish and determination. He wasn’t going to let Aradia go, not if he could help it. He cared for her far too much to let her go without at least a fight.  
  
He couldn’t hear words said, orders ushered, but he could see scowls and the streaks of panic, and that made him smile. Or, he was smiling with thoughts of triumph, thoughts of leaving this place and taking Aradia with him, until the First Enchanter took up his staff. Sollux reached for him with his magic, but it was no use. In between flares of power, lashes of lightning, a bolt thick as his arm and bright as starlight shot across the courtyard, slamming into his chest and knocking him back against the bars of the cellblock hard enough to bend the bars and knock the wind out of him.  
  
The edges of his world grew dark, sinking in on him and his power crackled down, static filling the air. The last he saw was the three of them closing in over him. The last he heard was Aradia screaming his name.  
  
At the height of the day, at the peak of the sun, the First Enchanter smiled down at Sollux and Aradia, “Well, the sun suits him, don’t ya think?”  
  
Feferi patted his arm, “Don’t be cruel, Erifin.”  
  
She turned to walk away and he followed, “I wasn’t bein’ cruel. I just think it’s pretty funny his name is ‘Sol’ and now he’s got a big ass SUN on his forehead.” He snickered as they walked.  
  
Down below the pair of them stared ahead, eyes blank and expressions stone, lost of emotion. No drive, no dreams, no passion. Calm smiles not for their own amusement, but for the knowledge a smile puts others at ease.  
  
Worlds devoid of color, no song in the air from the minstrel across the court, but at least they were still together.  
  
Together enduring a fate worse than death.


End file.
